


Stone

by PaP



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW Comics), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, F/F, Fear, Intimacy, Mental Anguish, Older Characters, Older Woman/Younger Woman, Post-War, Relationship Problems, Romantic Angst, Romantic Friendship, Snippets about damaged people, Sometimes a message is veiled, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, What's real in all that's left to the imagination
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:15:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25359043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaP/pseuds/PaP
Summary: Time to hurt, hardens the heart.
Relationships: Amy Rose/Rouge the Bat, Tangle the Lemur/Whisper the Wolf
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

There’s a sudden swing, a crunching connection, a tumbling flourish, a heavy thud, a collective gasp.

The fog of hot emotion and hormones dissipates, leaving Amy standing over the crumpled body, staring at the open, sour air the body had occupied when it was upright.

“Shit!” bellows a familiar voice upon realisation of what has just transpired, followed shortly by a muttered string of, “Shit, Shit, Shit,” the voice, belonging to a friend, getting louder as the friend hurries closer, pushing through the other patrons to reach her quickly.

She lowers her eyes, a vibrant green, and stares at her hands in silent disbelief and victory. They’re still held out before herself, a combat stance she hasn’t forgotten despite her age and disuse since the last war, they’re still making fists, but they’re numb, now, red speckles like rubies scattered over her fashionable big-girl glove. She only used the one.

Suddenly, other hands grab her by the shoulders of her coat and she’s yanked away from the groaning body, trying to help himself up, and she’s pulled into familiar perfume.

“Amy! God! What the hell!”

She blinks, stumbling against Rouge’s chest as the older woman, like a lifeguard wading through the sea with someone in need of saving, drags her away from the scene they’re guiltily leaving behind, the ocean of upright bodies gathering all around, swarming in, yet parting timidly to clear a path for the both of them, lest they be churned.

“God dammit…”

It’s shocking how cold it is, outside the bar, and they almost trip over the step on the way down from the swinging door, escaping from the light that had emanated from within.

The bat’s blue-green eyes are narrowed in cold fury, disappointment, confusion as she hoists herself and the hedgehog upright, breathing cigarettes and booze into the other’s ear. “What the fuck was–?”

“I don’t know.”

It’s cold when they’re struggling down the street, hastening to get away, too drunk to fly, too drunk to run.

Rouge pulls Amy with her, sees a hiding place, pulling to get around that redbrick corner, slamming herself, her back, against the redbrick wall and it stings, but her body buffers the blow, so the younger woman in her embrace isn’t hurt by it, pink quills buried against snow.

“I’m sorry,” comes out pathetic, one face to another, struggling through harried breaths as their world slows down around their racing, intoxicated bodies. “I didn’t… I don’t…”

Then silence. This moment passes, silently, save for their laboured breathing and roaring hearts.

“Are you okay?”

The hedgehog sniffles, nuzzling the bat.

“Amy, dear, are you okay?”

“Yeah, Rouge. I… think so.”

“Did he hurt you?” a husky voice asks tenderly, no less angrily, large hands dragging over slender shoulders, ruffling cropped quills as they pass over cheeks, fondling blushing skin, cupping a precious face and trying to prop a pretty head upright, so their eyes can stay, hazily meeting in bewitching clarity.

“On the inside,” is about the most sober thing to come out of the hedgehog’s mouth in reply.

“Amy, honey,” the bat murmurs, still simmering, “what did he do?” There’s something dangerous in those diamond eyes, a threat left unspoken.

“No, no, he…”

“I dragged you out here to keep you out of the rest, but I’ll go back in there without you, and I’ll fucking kill him on my own, if he goddamn touched you without you being okay with it.”

“He didn’t. And... please, don’t.”

“What did he do to you, Amy?”

“Rouge… you don’t… hit people,” the hedgehog slurs, tearful, ashamed, stroking the bat’s abdomen below, hiking up her expensive jacket and crisp shirt to get at the firm, knotted belly beneath, living and hot. “Too strong, too…” A woman leaning against another, older woman, fumbling to get at her heat. “Could… do so much… harm…”

“You don’t hit people. Not without a fucking good reason.”

“Heh, you’re… so funny, sometimes.”

“I've got the reason. That’s what I’m here for.”

“No, no.” A shake of the head within embracing palms, scattering quills. “You don’t… have to!”

“Amy, Amy, listen to me.”

“You’ll get in… trouble!”

“I am trouble.”

“You’re a friend!”

“Amy. You should never, ever have to hit somebody.”

“I know!”

“Never again. That shit, it’s over now. You’re a veteran. You can live your life. The scars aside."

"Rouge..."

"I wanted to help.”

“Not your… fault. You… You have helped.”

“I said I’d look after you, Amy.”

“I can… take care of… myself…”

“This was supposed to be fun.”

“It was fun! Mostly! Because... I happened!”

“No, not you. This is his fault. What’d he do? What made you hit him, honey?”

“Sorry. Sorry!”

“Why’d you do it?”

“I’m in trouble.”

“You’re not in trouble. Just tell me, please.”

“You’re so… angry.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m angry. But not at you. Okay?"

"You could... do harm."

"I'd never, ever hurt you."

"Not me. Him."

"So? Some scumbag, nobody'll miss him."

"That's... not fair, even if..."

"Amy. Honey. You just have to tell me what he did to you. Then stay out here, stay safe, and wait for me.”

"Don't..."

“Because I’ll go back in there and – hell, that’s stupid, I won’t leave you out here, by yourself, fuck me, what the hell am I talking about.” Rouge sighs into Amy’s open, panting mouth. “Someplace safe. I’ll… Yeah, that diner you like so much.”

“I’m not… hungry, right now.”

“Not even for pancakes?”

“It’s too late… for pancakes.”

“Bugger that! For you, it’s never too late for pancakes.” The bat breathes the hedgehog’s air, steadying herself, too. “I’ll take you to that diner, the one that I call old-fashioned and I always bitch about how their shiny, clunky coffeemaker never works right, but you call it authentic, and I’ll get the prettiest waitress to stack you some pancakes, then I’ll go back.”

“But pancakes without you…”

“I’ll go back, beat the shit outta that guy, if he hasn’t run off by then, and I'll get back to you real quick. You can wait for me to come back. Eat your pancakes, chat up the waitress, wait for me.”

“But I don’t like… that plan.”

“Amy Rose.”

She shrinks at the use of her full name.

“Tell me what happened.”

"Promise not... to hurt... him."

"I can't do that. But you can tell me, or we'll be here all night, doing this."

"Shit."

"Amy.

“He... said something… mean… about you, Rouge.”

“Something mean.”

“It was gross. It… cheapened you. Made you… less."

"So, he demeaned me?"

"Cracked a wise one. Wasn’t funny. Not… one bit, not to me.”

“Honey.”

“So, yeah, I got mad, like… I sometimes do, or… like I used to, and… I decked him!”

“Honey,” the bat repeats, stroking the hedgehog’s tearstains with her thumbs.

“I’m sorry! It was wrong when… I think about it. But… it felt right to do it, and… afterward…”

Rouge allows Amy to tug on the shiny buckle of her belt.

“Just after it was done…” The hedgehog swallows loudly, shaking her head again, more fiercely. “It felt… like nothing!”

There is another silent pause.

"Amy Rose."

"Rouge."

The bat steadies her again, murmuring, “You guarded my honour.”

“I wasn’t thinking straight. I was… feeling so much. I wanted… to defend it, or… something like that, it was… nobler in my heart.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. I do.”

“I don’t.”

“That’s okay.”

“Is it, really? Because… the fog was in… my head? That… excuses me, excuses what I did?”

“No. But that explains it."

“Oh.”

“You’ve always been passionate. Sometimes you boil yourself over.”

“But I got… better, right? Over time? With age?"

The despair is enough to make Rouge wince up close, sagging against the wall, causing Amy to sag with her, against her.

“I’m better, now… Right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, honey. You’re better, now.”

"Good. That's... good."

"Oh, Amy."

"I can explain."

"You just did."

“So I… I got real mad, before, after he… said those shitty things about you, because… I mean, I didn’t always like you very much, but… I like you a lot, now. I think… I’m… feeling sick.”

“Shall we skip the pancakes, then?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Do you wanna go home?”

"Yeah."

“Mine? Yours?”

“Shadow will... ask questions."

“Yours, then."

“Okay.”

The bat eases the hedgehog alongside, looping a slack, lithely muscular arm over broader shoulders.

“But my home… is yours, too… y'know."

“I know.” Rouge pushes away from the wall, gently drawing Amy away from the redbrick. “Thank you.”

“And… I mean, about before, about… what I said… about… liking you, more… than I used to…”

“We’ve both changed, over time. I’m easier to like, now. Mellowed out, Shadow said.”

“Exactly. Me, too. I mean… I mellowed out.”

“Somewhat.”

“Well. If a guy… or a girl… talks down my friend… I’mma throw hands, I guess.”

"Yeah." Chuckling, the bat guides the hedgehog further down the street. "I guess. With a few drinks in you, at least."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. We're cool."

“But as I was saying…”

“I’m listening.”

“I mellowed out. When I grew up and… Sonic said… no, again, and I saw… God, I saw it.”

“What did you see, honey?”

“I saw how sad the world could be… I felt, too, how it all could… hurt.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Me, too. I was sad… all the time, but then…”

"I was sad, too, wasn't I?"

"Yeah."

They pass below streetlamps, lighting their way, the moon blanketed by smog, a layer of acidic clouds Eggman had left as a parting gift, poisoned years before, by the end of the war.

“You showed me how… it can be happy, too, being here…"

Rouge won’t admit that her eyes are burning because of unshed tears, as opposed to any irritation caused by the atmosphere itself.

“With you.”

“Fuck,” she mutters.

"Mm?" 

"That's cute."

"I am... cute."

"Yeah, yeah."

Amy smirks, leaning lovingly against the older woman, tucked in so comfortably within her shapely side.

“Don’t say stuff like that.”

“Why not?"

“I’m too old for that fluffy, sentimental shit.”

"Tough guy."

"Damn right."

The hedgehog turns a little more, just then, as they stumble, pressing her mouth firmly against the upturned corner of the bat's.


	2. Chapter 2

“How is it?”

“It’s dumb, but fun.” The book is set aside just then, allowing for a handsome face to regard another. “Kinda like me, eh?”

“Fun, yes.” One woman smiles softly at the other. “But not dumb.”

The book is immediately forgotten about.

“I’m gonna… go wash up.”

“Will you be okay?”

“I’ll be fine, I promise.”

An expression of some doubt, intermingling prettily with concern. “Call me, if you need me.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll wait.”

“Okay. I love you,” she says, rising to go.

“I love you, too,” she replies, still seated on the end of the bed.

It’s been a long day.

And when the lukewarm water comes, it falls from rusty ramshackle pipes, the bathroom tiny, the shower tinier, triggering the fringe of crippling claustrophobia, but she stays quiet, the droplets self-destructing at her bare feet on the dull tiles.

The nice elderly couple currently renting the place tried, but no amount of scrubbing can wash the wounds of war away, not for impoverished veterans.

She emerges soon enough, stepping without a towel, leaving it on the rail after a cursory wipe down, so she’s fluffier than usual. And she’s usually fluffy.

Excitement lifts a chin from the book that had been taken up to take up time spent waiting, ready to rescue, now confronted with this naked body in the doorway.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Hope.

Uncertainty.

“You… like what you see?”

They awkwardly smile at each other as the book is gently shut and, again, set down.

“Yes. You’re beautiful. Always.”

“You, too. Can… we?”

Some strain.

“We don’t have to!”

“I know.” Then, a timid gesture for her to come closer.

She does, movements slow and trying to be sensual, still hopeful.

That veiled gaze follows. A bolder gesture, then, for her to lie down as would be most comfortable.

She does.

“Let me see,” comes out huskier than usual.

She does, spreading herself, like she’s food on a plate in one of those magazine pictures.

“God damn.”

“Like that?”

“Yeah. I… I like that.”

She does, too. Reassured. “Take it.”

Hands quiver as they rise, then fall, bracing.

“Take me. If you want to, then… I want you to.”

“Fuck… me.”

She wants it to happen as is her biological construction, and all her softer emotions aside, she’s as hard for her as she can be. She’s waited and she waits some more, trembling. She’s willing it to be true, wishing that tonight, finally, it will be. She’s been wilting, all this wanting, denied.

Tongue dragging moistly over dry teeth, wolf’s breaths come out silvery, dancing, as if exhaling her own ghost, fluttering lungs unable to contain it all, so fast, reaching hands so agonizingly slow, dragging predatory body closer to another heartbeat, hungry with neglect, tempted by kindness and companionship for the lonely feeling.

Lemur feels like prey, bedsheets creasing beneath that wandering grip of sinking claws, shivering helplessly as those hot spirits blast her cheek and bared fangs press seductively in, something less than a kiss, more than a nuzzle, leaving their indentations in her fur, her skin, marking her as belonging to another, no longer free, she’s not been her own for some time. She moans.

A claw touches a thigh, drifting around, toward the inside, raking red line higher along, leaving a trail through fur, unintentionally rough.

A flinch, felt by the both of them, admits that it hurts.

Before the core of the half of their all can be touched, she seizes against her, blue eyes piercing in slits.

“W-wait.”

The sudden retreat comes predictably, anyway.

“Darling, it’s okay.”

“N-no.”

A sigh, then, shaky, voices heartache and disappointment and resignation.

“Sorry. I…”

Amethysts are downcast.

“I can’t.”

“Okay.”

Whisper has just remembered herself, how fragile she’s become, how fragile she remains, ears folding back, eyes squeezing shut, again, like she’s nursing a headache, brows broken, shoulders collapsing to admit a bowing head.

“It’s okay. We… can try again, sometime. If you… want to.”

She inches away like she always does, always has, murmuring another apology into the void of fleeting desire, fleeing to the other end of the bed before she can be touched, where she’ll stoop in silence for hours, kept all to herself, too tired to communicate, to masturbate, yet too wound up to sleep, too guilty to cradle her best friend close over these hours.

Tangle is left naked on the bed, still here but left behind, legs and heart open, fresh from a lukewarm shower in the post apocalypse and ready to weep. She knows no more consoling words, beyond the consoling words she’s used many times before. She knows how hard it is not to give in to frustration. How hard it can be not to punish herself, when it seems her other half is not getting any better.

The elderly couple are laughing together through thin walls, over cups of murky tea, deaf to this struggle, happily together.

At some point the wolf turns toward the window, where there is shattered moon. Mocking her with its pale, pitted face, feminine, frigid glow penetrating the thin curtains partway drawn, billowing gracefully with the breeze. She feels no call, no howl in her throat. No courage. No urgency. No urge. Nothing. She’s broken. She can’t fuck. She hardly wants to, then when she has the chance, tears.

The lemur stares over her small breasts, beyond hard nipples, at her own belly, flat and firm beneath, furry overall. Like she’s searching for some blemish, like it’d be some source of displeasure, something displeasing. But that isn’t it at all and she knows. Feeling foolish. Her tail is slung over the bed, tufts of it like fingers, tracing aimless shapes. She flinched.

“Sorry,” is breathed, again, hours later.

“Don’t be sorry. I love you.”

Whisper draws close again, small and harmless, a kicked puppy and not that handsome wild animal.

“I love you, I always will, no matter what. That’s a promise.”

“I love you, too. So much. It scares me.”

“I know, darling.” Tangle embraces her with a fluffy tail, draping over broken shoulders, caressing a slackened bicep.

“You’re beautiful.”

“You, too.”

“S’just–”

A finger presses softly to softer lips, briefly, then falls away.

The wolf hesitates, before she moves, slipping beneath, tucking her head under the lemur’s chin, knowing that doesn’t really help alleviate the unfixed.

But Tangle appreciates that Whisper can even come this far, this close.

The wolf can’t cuddle with all of this barbed wire inside, so she rolls over to bury tears into luxurious stripes.

The lemur folds her arms over her breasts and stares at her not-quite lover’s back, the silvery scars present there. She can’t see them through the baggy tee-shirt, but she knows their location, having briefly glanced at them when Whisper felt brave enough for Tangle to see.

The wolf wishes she could be normal, that she could be generous, that she wouldn’t be so unintentionally toxic to be around, to keep, to love, to be loved by, desiring.

Girlfriends are supposed to have remedies for this, the lemur thinks again, keeping her respectful distance, save for her tail, a source of comfort that doesn’t quite compensate, not when the rest of her person is left exposed and unsatisfied. It’s a lonely feeling, being so needed, so overwhelming to need, desiring.

They don’t sleep, until morning announces that it’s time to rise and eat something from the poisoned produce of the soured earth, though at a more savage time, the primordial past that lives on in buried natures, beneath civilised mannerisms, Whisper would eat flesh and Tangle wouldn’t be here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alone I run, feverish, between those dizzying trees, trying to catch up.


	3. Chapter 3

Rouge carefully removes the blood-splattered, bejeweled glove from Amy’s slack, compliant hand, tossing it carelessly into the little bin beside the sink before turning the squealing, brassy faucet.

“You smell… nice.”

“Thanks.”

“You always… smell nice.” The hedgehog is still far from sober, drawling, slurring, draped prettily against the bat, dozily admiring that aging profile, green eyes warm and imbued with tender harmlessness despite such brutish strength, such violent potential. It’s a supremely affectionate gaze. “Mmm. Nice, nice, nice…”

Saying nothing, Rouge tests the flowing water’s temperature with her own bared fingers before finding it suitable and gently drawing Amy’s hand beneath the spluttering tap, intent on washing it, cleansing it, this skin.

But bad memories don’t work that way, they both know it, and it’s hard to go on together, and it’s agony to go alone, and it’s over, in a way, the game weaves on and on through eternity without any winners, only braggarts and deception.

“You’re nice,” the hedgehog mumbles over the bat’s toned shoulder, blushing cheek rubbing against it. “Mmm. I like… you.”

When the hand is deemed clean enough, close enough to being cleansed, Rouge turns the faucet again, cutting off that flow of precious, tainted water, thinking how a heroine like Amy, the girl who grew into a woman of war and then an empty shell with no clear direction when the war was won, deserves something so much sweeter than this. How criminal it all was, how the crime goes on punishing people.

“Rouge?”

“Yes, Amy.”

“You get… quiet, sometimes. And… I worry, sometimes.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s… okay, though! You’re… so good. Strong. Smart. And I… am cute.”

“You really are, honey.”

“And I… am here, for you.”

“That means a lot.”

“Rouge.”

“Amy.”

“D’you know… why?”

“Why what?”

“Why I’m here? For you.”

Gemstone eyes stare at their reflection in the spider web of a cracked mirror, a fist’s handiwork.

“I’mma… tell ya. Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Okay.”

Cold eyes. Sharp eyes. Hard eyes. Lonely, mournful eyes.

“I love you.”

The bat bites her lip, lets it go, aching, and shivers all over, involuntarily, leaning over the tiny bathroom sink with another woman’s hand in hers, all wet, slightly stung by the acidity. Meeting face-to-face with the self.

The hedgehog feels it, too, gritting her teeth as her arm comes around, carefully, caringly embracing from behind.

“Fffffuck.”

“It’s okay.”

“Oh, god.”

Amy drags her wet hand over and below Rouge’s cupping palms, along inner wrists, gliding between arms before suddenly brushing that bead of blood from a bit lip.

The bat hasn’t been touched so kindly in forever. She closes her eyes and savours it in her mind, the hedgehog’s fingertips so warm, so wet, naturally a mindful woman, the type to tread old fantasies in private, flirting to cover up the gnawing things left lacking where there’s darkness, inside.

“You don’t have to… say it back, to me. I know. I know.”

“You deserve better.”

Amy’s hand obscures those words as it continues to wipe the blood from Rouge’s lip.

“You gave everything for us.”

“I try… not to complain. Did it for… him, then… for everybody I… love. Then, just… for everybody.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“You… shouldn’t be. Here we are. Mm? Where… are we? I’m here, with you. You, heh… stuck around. You’re here, with… me.”

The bat turns her head, dodging that hand, and slams her mouth against the hedgehog’s forehead, the bloody kiss imbued with such ferocity.

“Ouch,” Amy says with humour, after a moment of simply enjoying being kissed.

Rouge drags a wet hand through cropped pink quills that smell like rose petals, pressing harder, passion searing behind the shut lids of her eyes.

“Will you… stay, tonight?” In this tiny bathroom, the hedgehog’s small voice rings loudly, like on the battlefield when she had to yell over the rest to direct their troops, to seek a reply from a friendly voice still alive, failing miserably even as they bled to win the war, always miserable since. But she can still feel moments of happiness, too, having found unexpected comfort in the woman still kissing her, even in the midst of the mute echoes of those old ghosts, there whenever they breathe, mutual understanding in shared suffering.

Finally, the bat pries her lips away, bringing their foreheads to rest together.

“Please?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, honey. I’ll stay.”

“Yay!”

Rouge smiles, then. She doesn’t smile very often, anymore. But her smiles are so beautiful, because now that they are hardly born and die again so soon, they are sincere when they’re alive.

“We can… snuggle.” Amy always says that, every time she gets her way like this, craving closeness, so willing to offer it generously in return for whatever scraps a more frigid femininity will toss her way. “And talk. And watch… old movies… ’til we fall asleep. And you’ll… hold me.”

“And you’ll do that thing you do, with my ears.”

“Yeah. You like… that.”

“I sure do.”

They breathe, together.

“Open… your eyes.”

The bat does, lashes fluttering, bedewed.

“Look at… me.”

The bat does, refocusing on green.

“Such pretty… colours.” The hedgehog was never intimidated by the aquamarine. “Like a sea… in a dream.”

“A nice dream?”

“Mmhm.”

Flattered, but brushing it aside, Rouge begins to drag herself and Amy away from the sink. “Come along, then. Let’s get you decent.”

The hedgehog cooperates uncoordinatedly, giggling and grunting and ruffling the bat’s ears, leaving snowy fur in disarray. They sprawl out when it’s over, Rouge on her back, Amy on her chest.

“I think… I feel…”

Silence.

“Hmm?”

“I forgot.”

“You forgot.”

“Was gonna… say something… probably profound, possibly.”

The bat chuckles huskily, drawing her fingernails through the hedgehog’s tussled quills.

“You… smell nice.”

Suddenly, Rouge feels it, the rude, beautiful instant Amy lapses off into sleep.

They hadn’t picked an old movie to watch on the old screen, a testament to how society has tried to stay civilised, to get it all working, again, all grimy and barely optimistic.

“Honey…”

The bedroom is neat and orderly, wallpaper fading, an insinuation of its past.

“Honey, I, uh…”

This little home is similarly built from a grander carcass.

“I love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do frequently meet myself, as I'll catch up to myself, inevitably.  
> And the disappointment in seeing me go, trying to lose myself, again, is inevitable, too.  
> Punching myself in the face in self-defense doesn't scare me anymore, even as I stumble and I escape.  
> It only makes me hurt.  
> It's... lonely, I think.

**Author's Note:**

> I want to divorce myself.  
> Take all the good that's left in me, this half or less of myself, that I'll keep as mine, and take it far away.  
> Leave the rest behind.  
> Then, forget.  
> I'll be part of a person, but the next time someone asks me how I am, I can honestly reply.  
> "I'm fine."  
> Who will I be, if less than I am, being me?  
> Blah-blah-blah.


End file.
